Various types of hand-held electronic reading devices have been proposed to electronically display textual information for reading by a user. A typical hand-held electronic reading device includes a display device to display the textual information and a user interface which allows a user to navigate through the textual information and access various features of the electronic reading device. The display device and the user interface are incorporated in a hand-held housing to facilitate portability of the electronic reading device.
The textual information displayed by the hand-held electronic reading device is typically stored in a memory device or the like. U.S. Pat. No. 5,239,665 to Tsuchiya discloses an electronic book having an interface which receives an external memory, such as a floppy disk or a laser card, containing the textual information. Also disclosed therein is an automatics vending machine which sells floppy disks or cards for the electronic book. The automatic vending machine allows persons to buy floppy disks or cards on a daily or weekly basis. In this scenario, the total physical volume required for maintaining a sizable book collection for an individual may be undesirably large.